Understanding Generative Engine Optimisation / A Guide for Ambitious Businesses
Updated: 8 hours ago
The Importance of Generative Engine Optimisation
Generative engine optimisation (GEO) is crucial for businesses today. It focuses on getting your business cited in AI-generated answers instead of just appearing in a list of links. This is essential because AI-generated responses often sit between a customer's question and your website. If your business isn't mentioned, potential customers may never find you.
As a marketing agency owner in Liverpool, I often hear clients say, "I asked ChatGPT" instead of "I googled it." This shift in language highlights the importance of adapting to new technologies. Below, I will share insights based on research and evidence to help you understand GEO better.
What is Generative Engine Optimisation?
Generative engine optimisation is defined by researchers Aggarwal and colleagues as a system that uses generative models to gather and summarise information to answer user queries. Unlike traditional search engines, which retrieve documents for users to choose from, generative engines create answers by selecting and summarising information from various sources.
GEO aims to influence this selection process. While traditional SEO focuses on ranking your page in search results, GEO seeks to have your business quoted or linked in the AI-generated answer. The goal shifts from "ranking on page one" to "being the trusted source the model chooses."
Why is GEO Important Now?
Recent data underscores the significance of GEO. According to Ofcom's Online Nation 2025 report, Google Search is used by 82% of UK adults, handling around 3 billion searches monthly. Notably, about 30% of these searches now display an AI Overview, and 53% of adults report seeing these summaries frequently. Additionally, ChatGPT experienced a staggering increase in UK visits, from 368 million in 2024 to 1.8 billion in the first eight months of 2025.
Understanding User Behaviour
User behaviour is also changing. A Pew Research Centre analysis revealed that when an AI summary appears, users clicked through to traditional search results only 8% of the time. In contrast, where no summary was present, the click-through rate was 15%. Alarmingly, only 1% of users clicked a link inside the AI summary. This indicates that when AI provides a satisfactory answer, many users do not feel the need to click through to additional resources.
The Distinction Between GEO and SEO
While GEO and SEO share similarities, they have distinct goals. Here’s a quick comparison:
| Traditional SEO | Generative Engine Optimisation |
|---------------------|------------------------------------|
| Goal: rank in the list of links | Goal: get named in the AI answer |
| Success is a click to your site | Success is a mention, citation, or click |
| Rewards keywords and links | Rewards clear answers and trusted mentions |
| Measured in rankings and traffic | Measured in citations and brand mentions |
| One surface: the search engine | Many surfaces: ChatGPT, Perplexity, AI Overviews, Copilot |
| Position is stable and checkable | Output varies between sessions and users |
The overlap between the two is significant. A fast website, clean information architecture, and well-organised content benefit both strategies. GEO simply adds the requirement to structure content so that a machine can extract clear, correct answers directly.
Effective Strategies for GEO
Research by Aggarwal et al. tested various content strategies against a benchmark of approximately 10,000 queries. They found that GEO methods could improve visibility in generative engine responses by up to 40%. Key strategies include:
Adding quotations from credible sources.
Including relevant statistics.
Citing sources explicitly.
Improving fluency by writing clearly without introducing new information.
These strategies make it easier for AI models to lift and attribute content. For example, a sentence with a statistic and a named source is more likely to be quoted confidently by a model.
Interestingly, fluency optimisation can yield significant gains without adding new facts. Conversely, keyword stuffing has been shown to be counterproductive, as it reduces the likelihood of being cited.
The Challenges of GEO
Despite the potential benefits, there are challenges. A study by Puerto et al. published in June 2025 found that many current GEO methods are largely ineffective under competitive conditions. They noted that traditional SEO strategies are often more effective. As more businesses adopt GEO techniques, the overall gains diminish, creating a congested and zero-sum environment.
This means that while some tactics may work initially, they may lose effectiveness as competitors adopt similar strategies. Therefore, it is essential to focus on building a solid foundation before investing heavily in GEO.
The Crawler Dilemma
Cloudflare's research highlights a significant issue regarding crawlers. The crawl-to-referral ratio measures how many pages a platform's crawlers request from sites compared to the number of visitors sent back. In June 2025, Cloudflare found that Google had a ratio of approximately 14:1, OpenAI was at 1,700:1, and Anthropic was at a staggering 73,000:1.
This means that while crawlers are reading your content, the likelihood of receiving visitors from AI platforms is diminishing. The traditional bargain of crawlers taking your content and search sending you visitors is changing.
Measurement Challenges
Measuring success in GEO is more complex than in traditional SEO. Generative engines produce different outputs for the same question based on various factors, making tracking positions unreliable. A citation does not equate to a click, and with only 1% of users clicking links inside AI summaries, measuring outcomes becomes challenging.
Recommended Measurement Strategies
Referral Traffic: Monitor traffic from AI platforms in GA4, filtered by source. This provides a clear number, albeit small for many businesses today.
Fixed Prompt Panel: Select 15-20 questions your customers ask and test them against ChatGPT, Google, and Perplexity monthly. Record your appearances consistently.
Branded Search Volume: Track branded search volume in Search Console. If AI answers are effective, more people should search for your business by name.
Server Log Evidence: Check which AI crawlers are accessing your pages. If no crawlers have fetched a page, it cannot be cited.
Caution with AI Visibility Scores: Be wary of anyone quoting an "AI visibility score" without clear explanations. Variability in scores can indicate instability in measurement.
Action Steps for Businesses
To get started with GEO, establish a baseline. Ask ChatGPT, Google, and Perplexity the questions your customers ask. Record whether you appear and note your competitors.
Next, address obvious issues. Provide clear answers in the first two sentences of key pages, and add an FAQ section using customer language. Ensure your Google Business Profile is complete and matches your website details. Implement Organisation, LocalBusiness, and FAQPage schema for better machine readability. Finally, check your robots.txt file to ensure it allows the crawlers you want.
Who Should Hold Off on GEO?
If your website is slow, your service pages lack clarity, or your Google Business Profile is incomplete, focus on these foundational issues first. Research indicates that improving your site's underlying ranking is the most effective strategy under competitive conditions.
GEO becomes relevant once your foundations are solid, and you're competing with businesses that also have strong foundations. Many small businesses currently pitched AI visibility packages may not yet be ready for GEO.
No one can guarantee AI rankings. Outputs change between sessions, and the leading studies in the field disagree on content tactics' effectiveness. Clear writing, honest sourcing, structured pages, and a solid reputation are essential for success.
If you want to understand where you stand in AI search today, we can help.
Book a free strategy call: https://calendly.com/constellationmarketingsolutions/30min
FAQ (for FAQPage schema, real-query phrasing)
What is generative engine optimisation (GEO)? GEO is the practice of getting your business named, quoted or cited inside the answers produced by AI tools such as ChatGPT, Google's AI Overviews and Perplexity. It differs from SEO in that the goal is being used as a source rather than ranking in a list of links.
Is GEO the same as SEO? No. SEO works to rank your page in the list of search results, while GEO works to get your business cited inside the AI-written answer above those results. They overlap heavily, and research published at NeurIPS in 2025 found that traditional SEO signals remain the most reliable route to being cited.
Does GEO actually work? The evidence is mixed, and the field is young. Aggarwal et al. (KDD 2024) found content optimisation could improve visibility by up to 40%. Puerto et al. (NeurIPS 2025) found most of those methods were largely ineffective under competitive multi-actor conditions, and that gains shrink as more businesses adopt them. Both agree that genuinely relevant, clearly written, retrievable content performs well.
How do you get your business cited by AI? Answer questions completely in the first two sentences of each page, structure content with clear headings and FAQs, earn mentions on trusted third-party sites, add Organisation, LocalBusiness and FAQPage schema, and make sure your robots.txt allows the AI search crawlers such as OAI-SearchBot.
Why does GEO matter in the UK in 2026? Ofcom's Online Nation 2025 report found that around 30% of UK searches now display an AI Overview, that 53% of adults see these summaries often, and that ChatGPT recorded 1.8 billion UK visits in the first eight months of 2025, up from 368 million a year earlier.
Do AI summaries reduce clicks to websites? Pew Research Centre's analysis of 68,879 US Google searches in March 2025 found users clicked a traditional result in 8% of visits where an AI summary appeared, against 15% where none did. Only 1% clicked a link inside the summary. The study covers US users on Google and should not be read as a UK figure.
Should I block AI crawlers? Not indiscriminately. Operators run separate crawlers for separate purposes: OpenAI uses GPTBot for training and OAI-SearchBot for its search product. Blocking a training crawler does not remove you from that company's AI search answers, so most businesses should allow search and retrieval crawlers while making a considered decision on training crawlers.
How do you measure AI visibility? There is no reliable equivalent of rank tracking. Practical measures are AI referral traffic in GA4, a fixed monthly panel of customer questions tested across ChatGPT, Google and Perplexity, branded search volume in Search Console, and server log evidence of AI crawler access.
Sources
Ofcom, Online Nation 2025, published 10 December 2025. Google Search used by 82% of UK adults, ~3 billion UK searches a month, ~30% of searches show AI Overviews, 53% of adults see them often, ChatGPT 1.8bn UK visits Jan–Aug 2025 vs 368m in 2024. https://www.ofcom.org.uk/media-use-and-attitudes/online-habits/from-apps-to-ai-search-how-the-uk-goes-online-in-2025
Pew Research Centre, "Google users are less likely to click on links when an AI summary appears in the results", 22 July 2025. 900 US adults, March 2025, 68,879 unique searches; 8% vs 15% CTR; 1% click inside summary; 26% vs 16% session end. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/22/google-users-are-less-likely-to-click-on-links-when-an-ai-summary-appears-in-the-results/
Aggarwal, P., Murahari, V., Rajpurohit, T., Kalyan, A., Narasimhan, K., Deshpande, A., "GEO: Generative Engine Optimisation", KDD '24: Proceedings of the 30th ACM SIGKDD Conference, Barcelona, 25–29 August 2024. DOI 10.1145/3637528.3671900. Preprint arXiv:2311.09735.
Puerto, H., Gubri, M., Green, T., Oh, S.J., Yun, S., "C-SEO Bench: Does Conversational SEO Work?", arXiv:2506.11097, June 2025; accepted NeurIPS 2025 Datasets and Benchmarks Track. https://openreview.net/forum?id=oTeixD3oZO
Cloudflare, "Control content use for AI training with Cloudflare's managed robots.txt", 1 July 2025. June 2025 crawl-to-refer ratios: Google ~14:1, OpenAI 1,700:1, Anthropic 73,000:1. https://blog.cloudflare.com/control-content-use-for-ai-training/
Cloudflare Radar, "The crawl before the fall of referrals", 1 July 2025. 19–26 June 2025 sample: Anthropic 70,900:1, Mistral 0.1:1. https://blog.cloudflare.com/ai-search-crawl-refer-ratio-on-radar/
Cloudflare, "The crawl-to-click gap", 29 August 2025. Training accounted for close to 80% of AI crawling by mid-2025.
